NEWSLETTER 2018 Arborfield Garrison P2 Metal Detector Finds P4 Reading Abbey Quarter P11 Reading Abbey Gateway after restoration © Berkshire Archaeology BERKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGY Welcome to our new edition of Berkshire Archaeology News We hope you enjoy our latest and you can read more on the newsletter with news of some conservation works to the Abbey exciting recent discoveries and ruins on page 11. archaeological projects in east Berkshire. In this newsletter, We have some sad news to amongst other items, you can read report. David Williams FSA, about a previously unknown Early our Finds Liaison Officer, died Neolithic monument at Datchet unexpectedly in December. David (also reported in The Guardian!); was passionate about archaeology a once lost, now found, Bronze and especially artefacts. He had Age burial mound in Ascot; and a deep and wide knowledge of the possible paw print of a cat on finds of all periods and the Finds a sherd of Iron Age pottery from Liaison Officer role provided him David Williams, Finds Liaison Shinfield. with an opportunity he relished. Officerreproduced by kind He will be greatly missed. permission of the Portable The above image is of the recently Antiquities Scheme conserved Abbey Gateway in Past editions of our newsletter BERKSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGY Reading, part of the complex of are available on our website BERKSHIRE RECORD OFFICE buildings and structures of the (www.berkshirearchaeology.org. 9 COLEY AVENUE nationally important medieval uk) but you are always welcome READING Reading Abbey. The newly to contact us at any time with RG1 6AF restored Abbey Gateway was news or comment on the E. [email protected] formally unveiled in April this year archaeology of east Berkshire. T. 0118 937 5976 Berkshire Archaeology is an archaeological advice service for; 1 Soldier’s Pillar – a Bronze Age barrow, lost and now found - at Heatherwood Hospital, Ascot Heatherwood Hospital lies to the west of Ascot Racecourse and is an important asset to the local community. It is nearing its 100th birthday, as the Hospital first admitted patients in 1922. It originally specialised in the treatment of tuberculosis and an aerial photographic of the Hospital, taken in 1931, shows the purpose-built Hospital, with open verandas with awnings, facing south to provide fresh, clean air to its patients. These elements of the original Hospital still survive today within the Hospital site. Less fortunate was the impressive large mound of a presumed Bronze Age barrow An aerial photograph of Heatherwood Hospital, Ascot, taken in which can be seen just left of 1931 showing the Soldier’s Pillar Bronze Age burial mound centre in the aerial photograph. © Historic England This barrow, named Soldier’s Pillar on late Victorian Ordnance that it was built around 1,450 Hospital in 2017 remarkably Survey maps, was one of four BC, nearly 3,500 years ago. found that below-ground traces Bronze Age burial mounds of the monument still survive. documented at or near this Unfortunately the Soldier’s Pillar The infilled ditch around the location. The reason why the barrow mound was flattened barrow, from which the central monument was named Soldier’s during the redevelopment and mound material was quarried, was Pillar is unknown but the aerial expansion of the Hospital in found, along with possible traces of photograph appears to show the 1960s, and it was assumed the original ground surface below a flag pole or pillar rising from that all trace of this ancient the mound. It is hoped that further the centre of the mound. monument had been lost. investigation of this monument will take place in the future so that A second barrow mound can However exploratory we can learn more about when, be seen behind Soldier’s Pillar, archaeological work at the how and why these burial mounds between the two Hospital were built in this part of Ascot. buildings. Remarkably this monument still survives today within the Hospital grounds The black upper fills of the and is protected by Historic ditch surrounding the Soldier’s England as a Scheduled Pillar barrow mound Monument. An excavation of © Thames Valley Archaeological this Scheduled barrow in the Services early 1970s demonstrated 2 Arborfield Garrison - heritage from the First World War back to the Bronze Age Land at Arborfield Garrison was first acquired for military purposes in 1904 by the then War Office, for use in the supply and care of horses following the Boer War. Initially on a small scale, the Remount Depot expanded rapidly with the outbreak of the First World War when many temporary buildings and stable blocks were constructed. With the cessation of hostilities in 1918, many of the horses that served in the War were brought back to Arborfield for rehabilitation and sale. However the British military would not need the unprecedented levels of horse power again in 1933 OS map of Arborfield Remount Depot – future conflicts and the Depot reproduced by kind permission of the Berkshire Record Office was scaled back, although not heritage extends back at least Age metalworking. A ditch was officially closed until 1937. two millennia. The exploratory also found full of Roman pottery archaeological work has largely dating to the first millennium Although not associated with taken the form of machine-dug AD, just a decade or two after horses, the military role of trial trenches that are used to Claudius’ invasion of Britain. Pits Arborfield Garrison continued identify any areas of the site and ditches containing medieval for several decades. With the where ancient buried remains pottery show that the land was end of the Garrison, the former survive. This archaeological work, settled and farmed up to the military land is currently in the undertaken by the Museum of establishment of the Remount process of being developed for a London Archaeology has found Depot. Archaeological work at the new village community. The site’s evidence for Bronze Age and former Garrison continues and important WWI heritage has Iron Age settlement and Iron further discoveries are awaited! not been lost as the ‘Infirmary Stables’ built in 1911-12 have since 1st century AD been designated as a protected Roman pottery Scheduled Monument and are a on the base of a fitting memorial to the role of ditch the horse in this great conflict © Museum of as we reach the centenary of London Archaeology the end of the Great War. Meanwhile exploratory archaeological investigations within and around the Garrison are showing that the site’s 3 A ‘tin tabernacle’ is rediscovered at St George’s Hall, Reading The ‘tin tabernacle’ St George’s Hall in St George’s to the side of St Road, Reading, is an innocuous George’s Church in looking, apparently mid-20th 1899. century church hall set to the Reproduced with the side of the fine, late Victorian, kind permission of church of St George. St George’s Berkshire Record Office Church was consecrated in 1886 © Berkshire Record to a design by Sidney Gambier Office Parry (1859-1948), an architect who designed several churches throughout southern England. The Church was built to service the urban expansion of Reading and also to serve the newly built Brock Barracks along the Oxford Road, which housed the Royal Berkshire Regiment. were designed and made in These include the ornate iron kit form to be bought from ‘rose’ window in the east of Interestingly, documentary catalogues. The most common the building, the scalloped research in 2017 by Pre Construct type was timber framed, externally barge boards and corrugated Archaeology has shown that clad with galvanised corrugated iron sheeting nailed to timber although St George’s Hall has the iron and lined with high quality studwork. Decorative iron roof appearance of a 1960s community tongue-and-groove boarding. trusses and the ‘rose’ window building, it was in fact built in show that the iron church was 1880 as a ‘tin tabernacle’ or pre- The ‘tin tabernacle’, built for a originally open to the roof. fabricated corrugated iron building. cost of £748, therefore pre-dates ‘Tin tabernacles’ were frequently St George’s Church and was used These surviving elements built as temporary churches by the congregation while the were hidden when the erected by any denomination. They main church building was under building was converted in the were erected before permanent construction. It would have been late 1950s and early 1960s, buildings could be provided. used for regular church services changing a ‘tin tabernacle’ to In the 19th and early 20th and served a poor community a modern community hall. centuries many ‘tin tabernacles’ of tradesmen, labourers and soldier’s families. Once St George’s Church was built, the ‘tin tabernacle’ was used as a Sunday School into the early 20th century before becoming a more general purpose ‘church hall’. Survey of St George’s Hall demonstrated that parts of The surviving iron ‘rose’ window of St George’s Church the ‘tin tabernacle’ still survive the ‘tin tabernacle’ and St George’s Hall © Pre Construct Archaeology © Pre Construct Archaeology within the existing structure. 4 Some typical metal detector finds from east Berkshire in 2017 As in most years, a range of Also a more surprising loss is metal finds from east Berkshire a medieval, enamelled harness have been reported to Berkshire pendant found near Reading. Archaeology over the last The pendant is decorated with 12 months, mostly found by the Arms of England, three lions detectorists and recorded on passant gardant, on a field of the Portable Antiquities Scheme red enamel, and retains traces database at www.finds.org.uk. This of gilding. It probably dates to year many are typical of casual the 14th century AD. It seems Medieval enamelled or accidental losses as people in unlikely that this fine item would harness pendant the past have gone about their have been lost without someone reproduced by permission of the everyday business.